Rwanda Génocide

So now we have Russia and the UN serving as guarantors that Syria will somehow declare and destroy its chemical weapons arsenal. But how will we know we've found them all? And how long will the process take?

I have lived the Holocaust my whole life. Early on, my consciousness was considerably wrought by my relationship with my survivor mother, her often intense and destructive interactions with her family and the different ways she and they coped with their past.

Many of us might feel removed from the Holocaust of 60 years ago and the Rwandan genocide of 19 years ago. But what is not so distant from us, and anyone can still feel, is that terrible hatred continues to surround us.

On our third night in Rwanda, I heard a low-pitched barking from somewhere down the hill. The only time I heard a dog all week. It didn't last long, and I wondered if he lived nearby, somewhere in the neighboring village. Or maybe he was just passing through, almost, but not quite ready to come home.

Australia, Argentina, Luxembourg, South Korea... and Rwanda won seats on the UN Security Council for a two-year term. Rwanda provided the drama because its election came after charges it was stoking a rebellion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

A beautiful little first-grade Rwandan girl named Divine read to us, and we all melted. Her warmth and genuineness, her joy in sharing her reading skills and in showing us how she could write her name on the blackboard made us smile and think about her wonderful gifts.

It behooves the Western leaders and the American government who are being critical of Rwanda's Kagame to learn from the Rwandan experience and finally agree to put an end to mass slaughter and to seriously punish all those who engage in it.

This time, we're looking at Kinyarwanda, a new drama in which director Alrick Brown uses a fractured timeline and mutable genres to portray how the Rwandan genocide of 1994 looked to those trapped in its madness.

Africa brought Ishmael, Joshua, and I together, and it also brought Kinyarwanda into my life. The film has empowered Rwandans to share their stories with the world. Their story is not about genocide. Their story is about faith, hope, life, love and forgiveness.

"Where is the world?" This is a question we have seen Syrians scrawl upon crude placards in Homs and elsewhere. And while the diplomatic mission of Kofi Annan must be vigorously supported, the time has arrived to begin contemplating other measures.

When Americans suggest the wealthiest members of society might pay a little more tax, they are not unleashing Mao's Red Guards, or Rwanda's Interahamwe. They are debating the relative costs we should all bear for being privileged enough to live in a healthy, safe democracy.